The number of people who have implanted an artificial pacemaker will be 1.43 million in 2023… Cyborgs are flooding into the ‘here and now’
The impact of science fiction on the popular imagination is quite large. The assumption that cyborgs are something from the distant future is one example. This assumption is supported by several locations shared by science fiction. Firstly, fictional time is set in the distant future of the present. Second, many of the cyborgs that appear have transcendent abilities. Thirdly, the appearance of the characters is too dehumanizing.
The imagination fueled by ‘the future of time + the superhumanity of competence + the dehumanism of appearance’ is easily transformed into the conviction that cyborgs are at least nothing ‘here and now’. In fact, apart from Rick Deckard in ‘Blade Runner’, the cyborgs in ‘Ghost in the Shell’, ‘Akira’, ‘Robocop’, ‘Terminator’, and ‘Star Wars’ are too ‘futuristic’ and ‘robotic’. So the idea that almost any of us could be a cyborg doesn’t make sense.
In addition, the conceptual misunderstanding of cyborgs also contributes to the sense of spatial and temporal distance. Therefore, a brief explanation of the concept is necessary. Interestingly, quite a few people know that cyborg is a compound word of cybernetic + organism. An organism means a living organism, so let’s focus on cybernetics.
As terms such as space, security, university, and violence become commonplace, cyber is used as if it were a word that means ‘virtual’, but in reality, this is not the case at all. The word cyber is derived from the Greek word kuber. Coober refers to the navigator who determines the direction of the ship. The closest word to this is government, that is, governance management management. Therefore, it shares the original meaning with G=governance, which is the approach to environmental, social and governance (ESG) management and governance that is biased, meaning government.
Cybernetics is a suffix of cyber, meaning control, management and manipulation, with netetics, meaning structural system. Simply put, cybernetics is like an automatic control system. A boiler or air conditioner that operates at a specific temperature and time is the most common example. Without going into autonomous driving, you can think about controlling a car’s cruises.
Let’s go further. What makes cybernetics innovative is that it enables precise communication of physically distinct and spatially separated objects, parts and machines. It has become so common now that it has lost its sense of mystery, but a typical example is the remote control. Watching TV, starting a car, flying a drone, and even a guided missile recently launched by Russia all operate on the principle of cybernetics.
The creator of the worldview concept that all things and living things can communicate and connect universally was the American physicist Norbert Weiner. In his 1948 book, Cybernetics: or, Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine, he described the structural similarities between steam engines and the control circuits of the human body, and computer operation and the operation of the human brain. Based on this compatibility, Weiner envisions a universal order of communication that pervades machine-human-animal computing.
The Commercialized Internet of Things (IoT) is impossible without cybernetics. The same goes for smart cities. Nowadays, voice recognition services with the grand name of ‘artificial intelligence (AI) assistant’ (SK Telecom’s Ari, KT’s Genie, Apple’s Siri, etc.) are also cybernetics applications. In fact, it is no exaggeration to say that the concept of AI itself is a derivative model of human-machine-computer communication invented by Weiner and his neuroscientists.
Why ‘Iron Man’ is not a cyborg
Now that we understand cybernetics, we return to our original topic: cyborgs. The medical community defines a cyborg as the body of a human organism loaded with biomechatronics (or bionics). Rather, it would be easier to organize a human body (or other existence) ‘fused’ with technology. If we follow this brief definition, we find that there are many more cyborgs around us.
The word ‘fusion’ is important here, emphasizing that the body together with technology should work organically according to a single language and command system. If not ‘fusion’, it would be a simple or ‘joint’ physical fusion between a living body and a mechanical prosthesis. In that sense, Darth Vader from ‘Star Wars’ is recognized as a cyborg, but Tony Stark from ‘Iron Man’ is classified as a man who wears high-tech scrap metal.
Now let’s summarize how to identify robots (automatic machines with self-sufficiency) and cyborgs. In short, the criterion that separates the two is the presence or absence of an organic body. A robot is a crystal of pure artificial technology, while a cyborg is a synthesis of a ‘natural’ body and artificial technology. Therefore, it is difficult to conflate the ‘Atom’, ‘Mazinger’, and ‘Taekwon V’ robots with the ‘Blade Runner’, ‘Terminator’, ‘6 Million Dollar Man’, and ‘Somers’ cyborgs into the same family. ‘..
Among the recently released lifestyle robots, the number of humanoids imitating human appearances has increased rapidly, increasing confusion. It may seem like a cyborg at first glance, but judging by appearance is forbidden. No matter how friendly robots that walk around restaurants and airports are, they are different from cyborgs, which are organic combinations of living things and machines.
If you call humans pure cotton, the robot is nylon and cyborg is in between. Of course, the types of robots are diversifying and the number of connections with the human body (external body, organs, nerve cells, brain, and language system) is increasing, but let’s be satisfied with this this time. If the abbreviated explanation above was not as clear as the classification of flounder, flounder, and flounder, I will explain it further at the next opportunity.
Famous Cyborg vs Normal Cyborg
At this point, there is a person, a cyborg, to introduce. His original name was Stelios Arcadious, and his new name was Stelarc. Born in 1946 in Cyprus, he moved to Australia to work as a performance artist. He has three ears. Two are ‘natural’ and the other is artificial.
The third ear is attached to the inside of his left arm. It also has a built-in microphone and a Wi-Fi chip to connect to the Internet. Therefore, the third ear connected to the Internet can hear sounds that the two ‘natural ears’ cannot hear. Conversely, everyone can share that third ear sound online.
The project, called ‘Ear on the Arm’, was conceived in 1996 and began in earnest with a body transplant in 2006. In order to overcome the limitations of the natural body, it intends to enter a new world of sense and cognition. through ‘alternative body architecture’.
As a result, Stellac became a cyborg, a combination of humans and technology, a composite of natural bodies and artificial parts. He himself became a writer and a work of art, and his body became a permanent performance of transhumanism. He says: “What matters is the connection, not the identity of the body, and the interface, not the location or the mobility.”
Besides Stellac, there are many cyborg ‘celebs’. Moon Ribas has seismic sensors in his elbows, so he can detect movements around the world regardless of his location. Wearables pioneer Steve Mann has expanded cognitive capabilities by connecting the brain and other senses to a computer.
Neil Harbisson, who implanted an antenna in his skull in 2004, has the ability to recognize radio waves and convert sounds into colours. Kevin Warwick built a microchip in his wrist in 1998 and connected it to the median nerve.
I want to emphasize again that many more ‘normal cyborgs’ include criminals than this particular ‘celebrity cyborg’. As of December 2019, there were approximately 740,000 registered cyborgs with artificial hearing aids (not removable hearing aids). Additionally, as of 2016, 1.14 million cyborgs worldwide were implanted with an artificial cardiac pacemaker. According to the statistics, the number is expected to increase to 1.43 million by 2023. With the recent increase in smart lens implants, the ‘cyborg population’ is increasing much faster.
As noted earlier, the popular imagination that cyborgs are kept ‘somewhere in the future’ is neither correct nor appropriate. However, the effect is significant, and it is estimated that there are many ‘people’ who do not even know they are actually cyborgs. Therefore, there is a high chance that someone around will laugh at ‘Cyborg Coming Out’ as a snarky joke. Let’s turn our eyes away from the stereotype of an android, wrapped in a titanium exoskeleton, muscles powered by liquid nitrogen, and complex circuitry. Ordinary cyborgs walking around ‘here and now’ overflowing.
Jeongbong Choi, former professor of film theory at NYU
